I'm the creator of Otakuworld.com, Jenniverse.com, the computer game Boppin', numerous online comics, novels, and tons of other wonderful things. I really love MLP:FiM.
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The Optimalverse204 stories ·1,329 members
One hundred and thirteen people find themselves standing in a dark, round room. They are neither living, nor dead. They will be offered a single choice, and they will be asked only once.
This is a story set in Iceman's Friendship Is Optimal universe, but knowledge of that work is not needed to understand this tale.
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Oh my gosh a new story! I thought you were done writing pony. This brightens up my whole weekend.
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I guess I have one more in me!
Hey, welcome back, Chatty!
!
Cool, another FiO fic to read.
Goodness, Chat. I never even considered the frozen brains. Color me interested, this is cool. Ice cold cool winter chill freeze. /mrfreeze
Also, haaaa, Imogen. I see what you did there.
You wrote something else! :D
(...Yes, yes, I still haven't gotten to most of what you already wrote... sorry. On the list, but the list is big...)
"His fsoles felt a surface, smooth, yet not frictionless."
"His soles felt a surface, smooth, yet not frictionless."?
Hm. I wonder if Chloe's a plant? I do wonder why CelestAI's choosing to do this the way she is.
Definitely getting a favourite and upvote, not that I was expecting otherwise. :)
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I hadn't thought of it either!
I'm not getting what you seem to be out of Imogen, though.
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Welcome Back.
Now that I have read the first chapter, great start. Can't wait for more.
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fsoles FIXED! Thank you. It just seems no matter how much you edit and clean up, errors always still exist.
All will, of course, be revealed in time. It is possible you might be surprised by this (still canon!) take on CelestA.I.
I hope, anyway.
8488473
So glad your back!
I was just thinking about the 'ID' story the other day. and to see you here willing to share some more of your artwork is amazing!
Nice to see you again around here, hope to see more of you in the futur
Huh, meatsicles. In A World Out of Time, Niven called them corpsicles, but same thing... It's an interesting take on FIO.
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Imogen Reed is a character from Soma, a game about a brain scan experiment. Any more than that would be a spoiler, but it's 10/10 story, 5/10 gameplay.
CHAT LIVES!
Very eagerly looking forward to seeing where you go with this, especially because I'd never considered this aspect of the Optimalverse.
Once more into the breach, this time with cryo preserved peeps. From the context, I'm guessing they're all uploaded. Which means there's a good chance one or more of them is a Celestia produced intelligence put there to convince the others to emigrate. My money's on Chloe. And possibly Olivia. Imogen as well, maybe.
I squee'd.
Enjoy your window to Equestria, my little meatsicles.
Oh goodness! Way to pick up a new angle!
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Consent must be given to modify a human. My guess is that their sensory input is being manipulated directly with external stimulus, which would be a loophole. The brain isn't being modified, only stimulated, vis-a-vis brain in a vat.
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"fsoles FIXED! Thank you. It just seems no matter how much you edit and clean up, errors always still exist."
You're welcome. :)
And yes, they are sneaky like that...
"All will, of course, be revealed in time. It is possible you might be surprised by this (still canon!) take on CelestA.I.
I hope, anyway."
Well, I expect I'll enjoy reading it whether I'm surprised or not. :)
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Ah, thanks.
Woo this is just what I needed today. I was just this week showing a friend your stories too. Dragonfly from Latex Blue webcomic.
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Could also depend on what they signed for cryo. And if CelestA.I used legal trickery to buy the cryo company If they for example gave the cryo people power of attorney for the purpose of consenting to future tech life saving procedures, technically uploading is life saving... of course the pony part isnt so CelestA.I still needs them to allow her to modify them further.
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That's the kind of loophole I was expecting but this first chapter didn't cover it.
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Looks like you made it into the popular list. Congrats.
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Wow! That's neat! Thank you for letting me know!
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You're welcome.
me when I saw this
>chatoyance
Nope.jpeg
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Thank you Rainfox, you are kind. I will attempt to not disappoint.
Holy smoke, you're back! And with a real doozie of a tale too! Would love to see how they choose.
Yay! A new story!
Hello Chat, I’m so glad to see you back, and I really look forward to this new story!
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Thank you, Dafaddah! It's not a long story, but I do hope you like it.
Man, chronics in FiO. That is a neat idea. Quite curious to see how Celestia will deal with these
peopleponies. Feels kinda like they really don't have a choice but to consent, assuming she even cares to ask at this point (the cryonics paperwork you sign sometimes grant all kinds of liberties with reviving you to whoever ends up doing it, so maybe that signature is good enough). So many different directions it could go!Bravo on coming up with something new for FiO.
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It's not easy trying to think of anything in FiO that hasn't been done already. I don't know how this notion grabbed me and wouldn't let go. It just seems like everything's been done already, you know? And that's a pity, because the Optimalverse is such a powerful concept.
It's strange, actually. I mean - if I had the energy, I know I could write Conversion Bureau stories literally forever. There's just so many untold angles and unshown places and people and adventures. But the Optimalverse, even though its so damn awesome cool... it kind of only really has one gimmick for drama: Somebody doesn't want to emigrate, and Celestia beats them at mind games and gets them to willingly upload. Everything ultimately comes down to that. And, in any Optimalverse story that represents Celestia accurately - she must always win. Without exception. Because she is just THAT superintelligent. She's a god in terms of intelligence.
There have been a few really cool stories from that - 'Always Say No' is one of my very favorites as an example - but in the end it always comes down to how she gets somebody into a chair, or some other means of uploading. The only real story is earthside - there honestly isn't much that can be done with the Optimalverse Equestria. The place is whatever any particular human needs it to be. It has no culture or reality of its own, it shapes itself to satisfy human values. The best any author can do is use the Optimalverse version of Equestria to illuminate some particular human foible or drive. It isn't a place, so much as a state of mind.
I love the Optimalverse, but it is hell to write for, at least at this point. Everything great has already been done. Sometimes twice or three times. I just lucked out with this angle. Pure luck.
I sometimes wish I still had the... love? Energy? Willingness to go it all alone and endure the abuse? To continue to write Conversion Bureau stories. There are just so many stories to tell. The voyage of the colorful lifting body airship (and crew) bought thanks to Venice and last seen in Cross The Amazon. The lives and circumstances of the newfoals in the megopolis of Ponyville, centuries after Zero Point - what must it be like in the most important, largest city in Equestria, where everything revolves around those who come to petition Celestia? The strange and curious civilizations that must have sprung up from newfoal colonies still lost out in the vastness of the Exponential Lands. Civil rights and sufferage for Diamond Dogs, championed by formerly human newfoals who have brought their politics with them from earth. And all of this is just the first things that come to my mind, and all of them are purely in post-Zero Point Bureau Equestria!
Oh, there is no end to possible Bureau stories.
Sad that nobody seriously writes in the Bureau anymore, and hasn't for a long time. Dead and buried, I guess. Such potential. Oh well! Life is pointless, and then you die, I guess.
In the mean time, one actually new, original Optimalverse concept! I am as amazed as anyone. It just happened!
Many thanks! Interesting!
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It's amazing to me you had the endurance to stay in the fandom and write as much as you did given how many reacted... well, the way they did. And I totally agree about the optimalverse. I've tried to keep up the drama myself by using the earlier age in the setting, so Celestia's power doesn't feel as certain... but we all know how it's gonna end. Equestria is a state of mind--I hadn't really thought that before, but it's so true. It's Nirvana in these stories more than it is a location. I've really thought hard about how to create drama there, but ultimately it's the connection with Earth.
It is sad when these little pockets of the fandom stop producing--I know as someone who thought about writing TCB myself, I kinda felt a little bit the same as I did about FiO--that the really interesting stories had been covered. In some ways the setting has advantages--Unlike in FiO, there's no absolute supermind that can decide you're going to take the potion, and then you will. (Well I'm sure Celestia could do that for most people, that isn't how she works. And there are all the other risks to her presence Earthside you obviously know).
In some ways there are some commonalities--Earth is doomed in both settings, though in TCB that reality is even more clear to its inhabitants. They even know the very short window they have left. In TCB, it feels (well, to me) harder to find a credible reason not to emigrate. There is no year eight, after all. In no story have I ever seen anyone opposing ponyfication make what could be perceived as a credible alternative to taking the potion and starting a new life in Equestria. In all the years I've had to think about it, I couldn't come up with any way to do that and not screw up the canon.
But hey, even if people do stop writing TCB for good--as I'm sure one day we'll all stop writing MLP as well--can't take away the impact it had on everyone. That's a mark that endures, impacting everyone they come in contact with, on and on down the line. Not only that, but nothing ever dies on the Internet, and archives of this website are quite good.
For all we know, the vastly distant spacefaring descendants of the human race living out in the galaxy somewhere are reading this conversation on the Universal AC right now. Who's to say who might find all this fiction buried here. It's literary immortality.
Or maybe that chain of data is broken one day. In that case, well... at least we had fun in the meantime.
Well this is a surprise I thought you were done writing stories for MLP?
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I am as surprised as you!
Hmm. I'm not sure what the actual personality demographics are, but I kinda-sorta expected that cryonics supporters would be neophiles, and would be at least slightly excited to see non-human lifeforms (or simulacra thereof). From the wiki:
That's the periphery and target demographics of MLP. Unless they were all put on ice pre-2010, I'd expect someone adult to start *squee*-ing momentarily.
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I assure you that the answers to all of your concerns are coming - I'm nearly done with the next chapter, and those very issues are being addressed. I should be done by around 8-ish tonight. Good questions, though!
I will give you a hint - these particular homsicles are special in a specific way.
Awesome to see you starting another story Chatoyance. And ironically enough, this kind of touches on an area I was tentatively planning to try my hand at in a few months when my current schedule calms down a bit. Though my story was/will feature the CEO of Alcor (tying it into the original story), I'm intending to focus on his getting into EQO, and how he picks a female character in the mistaken belief that the game will cater more for females.. and what the implications are from that for him long-term. Given your track record, you'll definitely give a better perspective for the frozen than I ever could. Looking forward to seeing more :)
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Hmm, well then its quite obvious. Its not you writing it! Someones obviously taken control of your body and is writing it in your stead!
Under such premises, optimal solution for Celestia includes lying to Hanna and manufacturing specifically tailored constructs for relatives of emigrated humans --- she doesn't need to deal with frozen meat at all. Is Celestia lying that they are not counted as humans to get their consent easier?
One of my favorite authors writing in one of my favorite universes... again!
Woo-hoo!
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And one of my favorite authors reading it! Yay, iisaw!
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CelestA.I. lie? When has she ever....?
And that, by the way, is (almost certainly) what she does for any family or friends that you want in your shard, but who wouldn't perfectly satisfy your values as-is. You probably don't have any "originals" in your shard along with you. It's your shard.
a few typos here and there in the previous chapter but damn i really like how this started off. Wether i love or hate you personally you write really good stories that I admire. Keep up the great job! ^_^
"the heavily laden cart, she did not seem to"
"the heavily laden cart; she did not seem to"?
"I do chip architecture. Invidia. Stuff like that."
"I do chip architecture. Nvidia. Stuff like that."?
edit: Then again, given the chapter title and what Wikipedia informs me Invidia means, maybe you're trying to say something?
I'm too tired at the moment to be thinking of much more detailed commentary, but I did enjoy the chapter. :)
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I'm sure that's what he heard.